By Katie Dolan, McGill University, Canada Banff, you are absolutely beautiful! After a year in Montreal, a couple of friends and I decided to take a final big trip to the Canadian Rockies before our exchange was over. In early May, we went to Banff, and I can confirm that it is well and truly worth the hype. We landed in Calgary late at night, so it was very dark when we arrived in Banff, and we didn’t see much that night. The next morning, I got ready and went downstairs for breakfast where we were staying. I have never in my life made toast with such an incredible view.…

By Katie Dolan, McGill University, Canada After a few months of only seeing minus numbers on the weather app, I am finally beginning to defrost, and now I can safely say that I have survived my first Canadian winter! If you take anything away from this, the most important tip I have in dealing with temperatures like -20 degrees is to face it and enjoy it. I know that sounds a little crazy, but I truly mean it. Whether that involves actually spending time outside or embracing alternative options like joining an indoor sports team, it is the best way to stay surrounded by friends and avoid feeling isolated and…

By Katie Dolan, McGill University, Canada McGill isn’t nicknamed the ‘Harvard of Canada’ for nothing! If I am being honest, there is a pretty hefty workload at McGill. This might not be what some of you want to hear, but as someone who hasn’t said no to many (or any for that matter) social activities during my exchange, I have been able to manage my workload just fine. In all seriousness, yes, there can be a lot of work, but it is more than doable, and McGill students really live up to their ‘work hard, play hard’ reputation. Class Size and Schedule As a business student, I have been studying…

By Katie Dolan, McGill University, Canada. Eight days, three states, and a ton of photos later, it’s safe to say that I’ll be thinking about this trip for a long time. New York With around 10 days off in October, some friends and myself decided to go on a trip to New York, Boston, and Vermont. We got a night bus from Montreal to New York which got us in at around 8am in the morning. You can imagine how much a NYC bagel and coffee hit the spot after the 8-hour bus ride. But in fairness, the bus wasn’t actually too bad at all and I would be lying…

One word on everyone’s mind when you think about Canadian food, is poutine. Well, that and maple syrup. Speaking of which, did you know that Quebec produces about 70% of global maple syrup production? I didn’t know that either! That also explains why almost all Quebecois desserts are doused in the sugary substance. Interesting, eh? One of those would be la tire sur la neige, also known as Canadian maple taffy. As my very limited command of French has taught me, sur la neige literally means “on top of snow”. How it’s made is that boiled maple syrup is poured on top of snow, and wrapped around a wooden popsicle…

This was not how it was supposed to end. I was supposed to have stayed with everyone till the end of April, before bidding goodbye to a time well spent in Canada. Unfortunately, life had other planes in store for me, and the pandemic saw me flying back to the opposite end of the world, bypassing Manchester altogether. Now, I am back home, back in sunny Singapore. Things could not be more different here. You know, I’ve always had an affinity for islands. Born and raised on my island country, I moved to the UK for my studies about two years back. Then for exchange, I went to Montreal, also…

All that talk of how cold it is in Canada doesn’t actually prepare you for how cold it is in Canada when you first arrive.  The slush that seeped into my shoes when I walked around the city for the first time wasn’t exactly the welcome I had expected, nor the teeny tiny steps that I had to take to avoid slipping on the ice. They told me that it’d be cold but I hadn’t thought that I’d lose all feeling in my hands and feet when I went ice skating one bitterly cold weekend. Or that I’d trudge through a snowstorm and end up with ice in my hair…